Until now, I thought Democrats were being overly defensive as they circled the wagons around the White House, assuring everyone who would listen that the president obviously wasn’t involved. Who in Congress had overtly pointed the finger at the president?
Enter Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX) who figured out away to insinuate White House involvement in the IRS targeting scandal and needle the president about the NSA spy scandal at the same time.
Stockman sent a letter to Chairman Darrell Issa of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee on Tuesday, asking him to subpoena all NSA records of phone calls between employees of the White House and the IRS.
“Obama assures the public he only collected this information to uncover wrongdoing and protect civil liberties. Clearly he would want us to use it to investigate this case, because otherwise he’d be lying,” said Stockman.“If Obama has nothing to hide he has nothing to fear,” said Stockman.“This case must be investigated fully, given admitted wrongdoing by the IRS, its potentially criminal implications and revelations the White House has been less than honest about what they knew and when,” said Stockman. “Obama says the PRISM program is perfectly legal, so there should be no problem whatsoever in providing the information on White House and IRS phone calls.”“The only possible scenario in which the administration refuses to comply would be if it would reveal unconstitutional or illegal behavior,” said Stockman.
Stockman’s office electronically delivered the same letter to the Homeland Security Committee chaired by Rep. Michael McCaul.
Here is the text of the letter to Chairman Issa.
Chairman Issa:
Thank you for your ongoing efforts to investigate abuses of civil liberties by employees of the Internal Revenue Service.
These abuses seem to indicate a larger, higher pattern of ideologically-driven harassment of Americans which Congress has an obligation to fully investigate with every tool at our disposal.
Frankly I am disappointed by revelations Obama administration personnel have been less than forward about what they knew and when they knew it.
As you know, recent revelations the National Security Agency has been keeping an “ongoing, daily” log of every domestic phone call in the United States.
I respectfully request your Committee subpoena the records of every phone call made from all public and private telephones of all IRS personnel to all public and private telephones of all White House personnel.
If President Obama is collecting such information, he certainly would want us to use it. If he has nothing to hide he has nothing to be afraid of.
Warmest wishes,
STEVE STOCKMAN
Member of Congress
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